Dashing.io is a neat interface for creating a gorgeous dashboard. The app displays a web-based customizable dashboard with widgets of your choosing. As it’s simple to setup on Linux-based machines, Dashing offers superb opportunities to create a wall-mounted dashboard with a Raspberry Pi.

Installing Dashing.io

Prerequisites

Before installing Dashing.io, you’ll need a bit of software. Dashing.io needs Ruby 1.9.9 or later as a prerequisite. If you’re using Raspbian, chances are you have that pre-installed. You can check using the following command:

ruby -v

This should return some text telling you the version of Ruby, or that Ruby is not installed.

If you don’t have Ruby installed, you can accomplish this by running the following command:

sudo apt-get install ruby1.9.1-dev

You’ll also need g++. To install that enter the command:

sudo apt-get install g++

Install Dashing

With Ruby and g++ installed, we can proceed with installing our Dashing project. Run the command:

sudo gem install dashing

This installs Dashing. Make a new directory called dashboard and change directory into it:

mkdir dashboard && cd dashboard

Let’s set up a new project. Now enter:

dashing new sweet_dashboard_project

By creating a new dashboard project, we’ll have a folder set up for our new dashboard. Feel free to name this whatever you’d like but just remember what you called it. Make sure you’re in the sweet_dashboard_project folder in your command line. Use the the command:

cd dashboard/sweet_dashboard_project
sudo gem install bundler

This allows you to run the bundler. To accomplish that, enter:

bundle

There’s now a template of a dashboard set up. You’ll soon be able to view this in your web browser, but before doing so, you’ll need to start dashing. Make sure you’re in your sweet_dashboard_project directory in the command line, then enter:

cd dashboard/sweet_dashboard_project
dashing start

To view the dashboard, open your web browser and load up http://localhost:3030 (or http://raspberrypi.local:3030 if you’re doing this from another machine).

Troubleshooting

If you get an error about JavaScript runtime, you may need to install npm. Simply enter:

sudo apt-get install npm

Notice that Dashing by default uses port 3030. You may add parameters to edit that port. In a command line, run:

dashing start -p [port number]

This allows you to specify a desired port. Then you would load Dashing with http://localhost:[port number] rather than 3030.

Just like you start Dashing you can also stop it. To stop Dashing, run:

dashing stop

Similarly, if you’d like to run Dashing in the background, add -d to the command:

dashing start -d

Adding Widgets to Dashing

By default, you’ll see a few basic widgets like Buzzwords and a Synergy bar on your dashboard, but it’s fairly useless without adding your own custom functionality. You’ll find a list of available widgets you can tweak. I added a digital clock that displays the date and time. Adding a widget is as simple as loading its assets and editing an HTML file.

How you install a widgets slightly depends on the specific widget. For example, the 12-hour clock widget I loaded up required a command line install plus HTML dashboard file edit. For the Dashing 12-hour clock widget, open a command prompt and navigate to the root Dashing project directory:

cd dashboard/sweet_dashing_project

Once you’ve changed directories to the root Dashing project, run:

dashing install 6e2f80b4812c5b9474f3

But that’s not all. Now, you need to place the following HTML code in your Dashing project file:

You’ll find the project file is under dashboard/sweet_dashboard_project/dashboards. The default install includes an erb file called sample.erb. You can use this or make your own. Using Dashboard, you can make several dashboard designs using erb files with different names. Then simply navigate to localhost:3030/[name of erb file] to view a different dashboard. Open your desired erb file and add the proper HTML code to add a new widget to your Dashing dashboard.

To add a new widget, it’s as simple as loading the HTML code at the end of the erb template as a new list item. You can edit where in the dashboard layout widgets are by dragging them around in the web app. You’ll need to use HTML logic by placing the list items together within the unordered list (ul) tags. But placement within the list doesn’t dictate dashboard placement – you adjust that later by dragging and dropping widgets.

Mounting Your Dashing Dashboard

There’s no right or wrong way to mount your monitor to the wall. If you’ve got one of the Raspberry Pi touchscreens, you may wish to get a simple frame or shadow box to put around that. You can put your carpentry skills to use and build a frame with wood, or use an existing frame. I used a shadow box and an old 20-inch Samsung monitor.

A Dashingly Good Display: Final Thoughts

Dashing is an excellent project for your Raspberry Pi. It’s incredibly easy to set up, and there’s a decent selection of third-party widgets. There is a small caveat: Dashing is no longer actively maintained or supported, but that just means you shouldn’t expect updates to the main software — everything already there will continue to work. There’s also a fork, called Smashing, which has a similar featureset.

Moe Long is a writer and editor covering everything from tech to entertainment. He earned an English B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was a Robertson Scholar. In addition to MUO, he has been featured in htpcBeginner, Bubbleblabber, The Penny Hoarder, Tom's IT Pro,…